Kurama Tengu

Kurama Tengu is the tengu chief said to inhabit Mount Kurama in Sakyo-ku, Kyoto. He is regarded as the founding-figure of the Japanese tengu and is often referred to under the name Sojobo. He has the twin character of master of the mountain Shugendo around Kurama-dera and Yuki-jinja, and of the master who taught the boy Ushiwakamaru (Minamoto-no-Yoshitsune) swordsmanship and tactics. The night-time gatherings at Sojogatani (the Sojo Valley), where Sojobo assembled dai-tengu and karasu-tengu for martial training, are the canonical setting; the Noh play Kurama Tengu (by Kanze Kojiro Nobumitsu, Muromachi) dramatizes the encounter between Sojobo and Ushiwaka in elevated form. The Gikeiki (Muromachi), volumes 2-3, records the boy's training in swordsmanship with the tengu on Mount Kurama; the Heike Monogatari and Genpei Seisuiki provide cognate accounts. The medieval picture-scroll Kurama-dera Engi Emaki and the early-modern guidebooks Miyako Meisho Zue and Miyako Rinsen Meisho Zue preserve the tradition. Chigiri Kosai's Tengu no Kenkyu and Tengu Ko, and Sato Ken's Kurama-dera no Rekishi to Shinko, provide modern scholarly synthesis. Among the great tengu alongside Sojobo of Kurama are Taro-bo of Atago, Jiro-bo of Hira, Zenki-bo of Omine, and Zenki-bo of Nachi, forming the Hachidai Tengu (Eight Great Tengu). Kurama stands at the centre of the northern Kyoto Shugendo network and connects with the nearby Kifune, Ohara, and Daikaku-ji yamabushi traditions.